The study explores the labour movement’s fight to survive and thrive in the Niagara region. Thanks to extensive quotations from interviews, archival sources and local newspapers, the story unfolds, in part, through the voices of the people themselves: workers who fought for unions, community members who supported them and employers who opposed them.
An interesting collection of some of the new work being done in Canada by historians and sociologists, Class, Gender, and Region reflects Charles Tilly’s suggestion that “there should be no disciplinary division of labour: simply both doing social history.”
This collection of essays stems from a joint conference held at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth by the Committee on Canadian Labour History and the Society for the Study of Welsh Labour History. An Introduction by David Montgomery places the essays in a broader international perspective. Contributors from Wales include John Williams, Christopher Turner, Merfyn Jones, Dot Jones, a…
In October 1890, Eugene T. Kingsley’s life changed irrevocably while working as a brakeman on the Northern Pacific Railway when he was injured in a fall between two rail cars. While recuperating in hospital after the amputation of both legs, he began reading the works of Karl Marx. Joining a popular socialist movement, his activism eventually brought him to Vancouver, B.C. where he founded th…
The emergence, dominance, and alarmingly rapid retreat of modernist industrial capitalism on Cape Breton Island during the “long twentieth century” offers a particularly captivating window on the lasting and varied effects of deindustrialization. Now, at the tail end of the industrial moment in North American history, the story of Cape Breton Island presents an opportunity to reflect on how…
With lively, informative contributions by both scholars and activists, Bucking Conservatism highlights the individuals and groups who challenged Alberta’s conservative status quo in the 1960s and 70s. Drawing on archival records, newspaper articles, police reports, and interviews, the contributors examine Alberta’s history through the eyes of Indigenous activists protesting discriminatory l…
Max Swerdlow’s life as labour organizer and educator began in Depression-era Winnipeg and carried him to national and international prominence in the Trades and Labour Congress, the Canadian Labour Congress, and the International Labour Organization. In this lively memoir, Swerdlow recaptures the persons and events of his life in the Labour movement.
This book explores a relatively small but interesting and unusual region of Alberta between the North Saskatchewan and the Battle Rivers. The Beaver Hills arose where mountain glaciers from the west met continental ice-sheets from the east to create a complex and diverse landscape. MacDonald relates how climate, water levels, wildlife, vegetation, and fire have shaped the possibilities and prov…
Having mastered the enormous volume of correspondence and other records generated by staffers Lovestone and Brown, Carew presents a lively and clear account of what has largely been an unknown dimension of the Cold War. In impressive detail, Carew maps the international programs of the AFL–CIO during the Cold War and its relations with labour organizations abroad, in addition to providing a s…
Day care in Alberta has had a remarkably durable history as a controversial issue. Since the late 1950s, disputes over day care programs, policies, and funding have been a recurring feature of political life in the province. Alberta’s Day Care Controversy traces the development of day care policies and programs in Alberta, with particular emphasis on policy decisions and program initiatives t…